About Me

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, entirely dependent on my current mental status, taste buds and feeling of satiety. They are not representative of any higher powers or organizations. There is no intention to offend or defame anyone, especially those with the financial ability to sue.
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Hope you enjoy reading my blog - and yes! the pictures are meant to make you hungry while you're reading my posts late at night! :P

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

I'm a complete sucker for Crepes (everytime I walk past a Crepe stall I'll have to buy it unless I'm extremely explodingly full or feeling broke and stingy, especially since the smell of freshly made crepes warfts around everywhere). So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try Mazazu Crepe. I went to Liang Court for lunch, and while searching hungrygowhere, I spotted the link to Mazazu Crepe. I was very happy cos since I could go there after lunch.

They have a more decadant version of the strawberry crepe, the strawberry crepe with a slice of cheesecake stuffed inside ($7.80, pictured above). Since it was after lunch, I was pretty full (but die die had to try the crepe) so I didn't attempt the one with cheesecake.

They use Japanese (or Korean) strawberries. Actually, I think it tastes like Korean, since it's pretty hard to get Japanese Strawberries here. Very impressive, since these strawberries cost more than the usual kind of Australian/US strawberreis. And they taste better too - sweeter and alot more fragrant. The crepe is super long, and I like the way they put a piece of plastic at the bottom, so the syrupy+melted ice cream innards of the crepe won't soak the paper . Reminds me of the umbrella covers in shopping centres for rainy days.

The crepe itself tastes great with the ice cream, it's slightly buttery and has the amazing aroma of freshly made crepe, but it gets a bit rubbery once you reach the bottom, where there is no more syrup/icecream/whipped cream.

According to their website, the crepe consists of flour mixed with bran, so it's higher in dietary fibre and other minerals. Doesn't really matter to me, just as long as my crepe is soft and tasty :D The whipped cream they use is only 25% fat (quoting their website still...) but I'm not a fan of whipped cream so I didn't really try it. It tastes pretty normal to me though.

They have both sweet and savoury crepes, and there was a teatime offer the day I went - $6 for a savoury crepe (with the likes of tuna, chicken, egg etc with lettuce and mayo) and a cup of coffee/tea.Since they only have one crepe hotplate (or whatever you call that flat round thing), this boy had to wait for his crepe :PMazazu Crepe is a franchise from a Japanese Crepe Chain, Mother's Crepe and Cafe. We were served by 2 Japanese ladies, and somehow they missed out 1 of our 3 orders. But they quickly made the crepe they forgot (even though I was nearly done with mine).

There's a small seating area so you won't have to tramp around holding the crepe (though I had already planned if there wasn't any seats, we would just have to walk around Mediya Supermarket since they let you bring in food :P)

Now I can't wait to try the new Japanese mashed up ice cream from Citilink!Mazazu Crepe177 River Valley Road,Liang Court #B1-30/30A,

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Argh I'm damn irritated I'm very very sure I blogged about Oscars Buffet! As well as the day I went driving around in a heavy downpour along (part of) the F1 track but my post is MISSING now!!!!! It's not the first time and I'm very sure that I published it but it's gone from my posts page! Now I'm wondering what other posts blogger has been eating up without me knowing! D:<

I was reminded of the Caesar salad there and wanted to find my blogpost to drool over the pictures, but they're all gone! argh! And unlike the Dulukala restaurant, I'm absolutely sure that I've blogged about Oscars before, since after I blog I'll move my photos into my 'finished blogging' folder!!! Stupid blogger! One more time and I'm changing to wordpress! (Btw blogger highlights wordpress as a spelling error!!!:/)Anyway, this is the Caesar salad I'm thinking about: mixed in a real cheese bowl and they use the spatula to scrap of a little cheese each time, until the bowl is hollow. Plus the dressing is really good, can taste the anchovies. It comes with real bacon too (not that I like bacon) and finely shredded egg and croutons (and quite alot of other stuff that you can add).They give you this complimentary bread basket before you start, but just skip it it's a waste of space :P It just looks nice that's all. Of course, the first things I attacked was the cold seafood, including prawns, crayfish and mussels. I think there's oyster for dinner but I haven't tried that. Oscars is one of the better buffets around, the main dishes taste really nice, unlike most buffets where they serve mediocre stuff. There was this tom yum fish (the dry kind) that I kept eating. They also had the usual carving station (some beef thing) and cold dishes, as well as some local foods such as claypot rice and some fried kway teow (which I didn't eat). They have a noodle counter outside (the al fresco area) but we were so stuffed that we didnt want to walk all the way there to look at more carbs.

And they have such a huge lovely dessert counter - sooo many chocolates arranged on top of the counter, including one which was banana liqueur and peanut butter! The one with the red patch is some chocolate raspberry thing. Hope people don't sneeze at the chocolates, cos they're all exposed!And look at all those huge glass jars with meringue, cookies, wafer cones and super alot of ice cream toppings like gummy bear, chocolate chips, chocolate shavings etc etc! So exciting. I want to dash back there and eat lunch! They also have an ice cream counter, and the chefs will help you scoop the ice cream! So shoik no messy sticky ice cream scoops and disgustingly scooped ice cream tubs. And there's also waffles but I was too full to attempt any of that. The one on the left is my ice cream, cos I wanted to try nearly all their flavours, but then I was so full, so the server couldn't scoop nice pretty round scoops for me :PI tried this pineapple flambe dessert, which is pineapple caramelized with butter, served with a scoop of ice cream.

If I'm not wrong, lunch is $45++ (I think it was like $52 for each person after the extra charges), and dinner is $55++

I'm so going back to Oscars once the stupid patho exam is over - I can't believe I'm slogging so hard (not really hard, just that it seems never ending) for FOUR questions and dunno how many pots and 20 mcq:(

The fun in the buffet is having super alot of food to try, and not having to worry about the pricing afterwards :P

I found these pictures in the recesses of my computer - they're very shakey cos I was using my older ixus which didn't have an image stabilizer, plus the pictures looked fine in the screen, but thye're extremely blurry. Can't survive without my image stabilizers :P

Ayam Penyat from this store in the basement which specializes in (mostly fried) Indonesian food, It costs $6.50 for the ayam penyat and a plate of rice. It comes with a juicy (and incredibly oily) chicken thigh and drumstick, a small triangle of tempeh and tofu, lots and lots of oily fried batter and extremely spicy chilli sauce. The sauce was so spicy that I didn't eat any of it. The chicken is super oily and juicy, and is very tasty, probably cos of all the salt and batter.

Left: Happy Soda for $1.80 (or was it Joy Soda or something tt sounds like Kickapoo) looks like bandung with soda water, but I didn't try it.Right: My drink was the avocado juice which came with ample gula melaka and costs about $3 (or $3.50?).

Personally, I think that Ayam Penyat is overhyped, especiall the one in Changi Village - I've trudged there once (when I was nearby) to eat it and it's just deep fried smashed chicken with super alot of chilli sauce. Not impressive. Neither was this one , cos it's all oil and chilli sauce (which is so tongue numbing you can't taste anything else). Not something that I'll be going back for,I don't fancy clogging my atreries on this kind of food (save it for something yummier with as much artery clogging potential).

Ayam Penyat RiaNovena Square 2

B1-01/05

They give a staff discount of 10% to all TTSH staff, but you'll have to show them your staff pass BEFORE paying, they absolutely refuse to give any discounts after that...

Monday, December 29, 2008

I've been to ice cream heaven thanks to my brother's friend (this is super outdated - if anyone is going to Toms and you're near my house PLEASE TELL ME :D tom-pang and help me buy i'll pay you back and be eternally greatful!)The flavours I tried - the much coveted sea salt caramel cheesecake, which is the best I've tasted - smooth creamy sweet and salty at the same time, with the strong taste of caramel. And there's this wonderfully smooth aftertaste of cheesecake.Chocolate was extremely chocolatey - chocolate lovers will be extremely pleased withTom's Chocolate ice ceram. Though I'm not a huge fan of chocolate... The black sesame is really fragrant - I can smell eat before I eat it and there's so much sesame packed into the ice cream it looks like a frozen creamy version of the Chinese sesame paste dessert. Though I feel as if I'm going to get a sore throat after eating this cos it's quite scratchy.

I've also tried the White Chocolate and Cranberry, but it's not really spectacular, since the salted caramel cheesecake is so good.

Although it beats Udders hands down (please ignore the stars, I was un-enlightened at that time), since I hate tramping all the way down past the ERP and expensive carpark (carpark is crucial for me), I have been parasiting and eating Tom's ice cream when other people buy it. Plus, there isn't anything for me to do in that area, other than to irritate the nasty First (the worst) Thai woman >:D

I'm sure that a tub of the salted caramel cheesecake won't last 2 days in my freezer... but for now I'll have to be content with my Tillamook Vanilla Bean and Dreyers Toasted Almond Ice cream till after pros :\

Friday, December 26, 2008

Ok I decided to do my 2 very outdated ice cream posts. This place was recommended to me by my brother and his friend.

This place is pretty near my house, and it's apparently highly recommended by Makansutra (which I don't follow). So one night my brother and I were craving for ice cream (I was actually craving for my fave vanilla ice cream - Tillamook's Vanilla Bean which is my favouritest tub ice cream and it's pretty cheap too!) but I thought it'll be such a waste ordering vanilla from a gelato store which has so many other exciting flavours.

I sampled quite alot of flavours - from glutinoso (pulot hitam), Malaga (rum and raisin, not very alcoholic and very sweet), coffee (I like haagen daz better), mango, pistachio (got alot of ground pistachios and very sweet), vanilla (passable), lychee (very very sweet) and some other chocolate flavours (oily aftertaste). Since we trudged over already, we decided to get the big tub ($21.90) to satisfy our ice cream craving (ice cream is used here to cover gelato and ice cream). The small tub looks so miserably small and not worth getting, and only can get 2 flavours.

The three we got was the Donatella, Pistachio and Rock Melon. The rock melon is as fragrant as Haagen Daz's one, just that it's sweeter too. I actually like Haagen Daz better, even though Haagen Daz is ice cream and not gelato. Pistachio is packed with lots and lots of ground pistachio, and every mouthful is bursting with pistachio flavour, which is good since pistachio nuts are so ex. Donatella is chocolate mixed with hazelnut (actually I ordered this cos I liked the way it sounded - sounds like nutella which I really like) but it's very sweet and the chocolate taste isn't that strong.

Somehow, I just don't quite like the gelato here - I find the chocolate ones have a buttery/oily aftertaste which I dont' like and aren't as chocolatey compared to others like Tom's, Udders', and Venezia's. And altough their fruit flavours taste very natural, it's really too sweet for my liking. I don't usually have a problem with ice cream sweetness, but I find that the first thing to hit me whenever I try a flavour is the sweetness.

What I do like about the place is the friendly store assistants, who let me try nearly all their gelato patiently, and the nice clean look of the store. It's very bright and everything looks so nice and clean.

The first gelato I ever tried in Singapore (other than when I was overseas) was from Venezia. I used to go in sec sch a few times a week and eat the hazelnut or yoghurt gelato. Ah writing about it makes me want to go and zoom down to eat some delicious hazelnut gelato but help! There's such a big box of frutta la viva in the fridge and no one is eating it! Haiz! My mother is going to scold me :(#01-01 Suncourt,21 Lorong Kilat (Opp. Beauty World Plaza),Upper Bukit Timah Road,Singapore 598123Tel : 68638986(It's near this temple thing and it's not facing the main road so you'll have to walk inside. There's a 24hr coffeeshop nearby)

Saturday, December 20, 2008

There's this new tea place which I have been wanting to try - it's where Red White and Pure used to be. It looks very nice from the outside - lots of desserts on display and they even have a large parasol for decoration. The interior is nearly the same as Red White and Pure - same tables and chairs, just that they changed the wall paint to a pale green. Their menu is an A3 sized paper, with pretty designs and illustrations.The Croque Madame with Green Salad ($13++) came with 2 slices of bread and a salad dressed with balsamic vinegar. The bread slices were slightly hard, and the layer of cheese was very hard and not soft and creamy like the one I had in Canele. It's pretty dry, and I didn't enjoy this dish.

My BonBon Tea Salad ($13++) was a fresh mesclun salad with turkey ham, emmenthal cheese tossed with house red wine vinergrette. The presentation reminded me of Red White and Pure, especially with the thick brushing of balsamic vinegar glaze, and the filo pastry basket (yikes just relized that you can't see the basket in my photo :/).

Actually, this is the only dish which I'm ok about - it's hard to mess up a salad, plus this one is quite nicely presented and even comes with segments of grapefruit and orange (which I don't eat cos I hate citrus fruits). Truthfully, I can't taste any red wine, but the salad was well tossed in the tangy dressing. I thought it would have been better if the emmenthal cheese was cut thinner, like the way cheese looks if you use a fruit peeler.

The Turkey Ham sandwich ($12++) was very dissappointing - it's actually 2 pieces of bread, prettily arranged with a green salad, but the filling was quite miserable. The turkey ham tastes like the inferior kind of ham, and there's only a bit of tomatoes and some cream dressing. The bread is supposed to be freshly baked and home made, but it just seems like normal lightly toasted bread to me. I wouldn't have minded it if it cost $8 or lower, but $13++ is very steep for this kind of sandwich. I think the food here is really not worth it - seriously overpriced! And the food doesn't even taste that good. According to a comment I saw on Foodies Queen, it's run by the same management as Red White and Pure. I'm actually quite dissappointed especially since I had a very good experience at Red White and Pure before it closed down. Perhaps they're stronger in their desserts, and I'll come back one day to try the desserts and the tea. But definitely not for their savoury food. For these kind of sandwich-ey things, I'll go to my trusty Frensh.

Friday, December 19, 2008

I went to Wasabi Tei for lunch on Saturday (after a horrendous exam) and since it was a Saturday, being kiasu Singaporeans, we decided to start queueing at 1130am, since the place opens at noon. Our logic was that since for normal days we had to que at 1145, on weekends, we have to que earlier to beat the crowds! Lucky we decided to que early, cos there was so many big groups right after us. Being boring, I ordered the Chirashi Don ($20) but it was very saddenning cos the uni (seaurchin) was very ufresh (and looked like diarrhoea), and the maguro (tuna) and salmon wasn't fresh either. Bah! No wonder why the place has such mixed reviews. I consider myself lucky for having fresh fish on the previous two occasions I patronized this place. Of course, there's a huge amount of sashimi, but it wasn't fresh so it's not worth eating.

Plus, their prices have increased. Can see all the little stickers that they pasted over. Salmon teriyaki costs $10, up from $8. Still ok I guess - but I don't think I'll bother to que for so long. I think my time's more precious than the few bucks I'm saving.

The chef cut his hair! He looks less virulent now, and more deserving of the A they received for restaurant hygeine :P

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Ok I better blog about this before LIC gives up on me blogging it forever! lol I think I'm the slowest! Yikes!:/ but nevermind, better late than never - Ive been in a hole for the past 2 wks :LIC organized a cake sampling session at Obolo very long ago, where we got to indulge in a tasting variety of cakes (as well as meeting other bloggers like Charlinary [who explained to us un-literary people about The Unbearable Lightness of Being], as well as meeting Foodies Queen - there were lots of other ppl but then didn't get a chance to talk to them).

The seating area is really small - it's more of a takeaway place but they do have a drinks menu.

Even though the cakes came in sample portions, they all add up to a pretty big cake, and it was worth the $23 even though there was diminishing returns. There were 9 different cakes to eat

New York CheesecakeMango-Passion CheesecakePinada Cheesecake

Actually, when I was eating the cheesecake, I couldn't really tell which was which cos the flavourts were pretty subtle - I didn't quite like Pinada (pina colada) cheesecake, I much prefer the original drink - somehow I think that pineapple and cheesecake combi doesn't agree with me.

The cheesecakes are the creamy heavy kind, and since I started with them first (cos I thought the chocolate will be too heavy and mask the flavour for everything else) I got fully very fast.

Nikita (the green coloured cake) was one of my favourites - it had dark chocolate ganache mousse, cherry-raspberry gelee, Pistachio ivoire mousse and chocolate almond biscuit with kirsch. I couldn't taste the alcohol though. Tiramisu au Chocolat - I like my tiramisu slightly more moist - this one is a tiramisu cake, so understandbly it's not as wet as those kind that can't stand up on it's own and comes in a container.

Le Cassis - the pretty purple cake which most people liked. It had dark chocolate ganache mousse, blackcurrent ivoire mousse, chocolate-almond biscuit and crunchy praline feulletine (that's the base I think, which was pretty nice I like crunchy stuff in cakes).

There were 2 petite tartlets for us to sample; the Chocolat Noir and Chocolat-passion.

Chocolat-Noir was pretty good, remined me a bit of Chocolate Factory's Chocolate Tart (which is my favourite chocolate tart ever). It's filled with dark chocolate ganache so it's not too sweet. Chocolat-Passion had milk chocolate and passion fruit ganache. Most people found the passion fruit too sour, but I thought it was fine (perhaps cos I quite like sour stuff).

Of course, by the end of this, everyone was already having a major sugar rush but there was more desserts to come! One of my favourite desserts, the Dessert Shooter of Summer Berries. Description in the menu: Tangy mascarpone mousse, red berry gelee, kirsch-mixed berry compote and kirsch-soaked vanilla genoise, garnished with fresh berries.I liked how they made a cute little 'dew drop' on top of the raspberry. I can't seem to taste any alcohol at all, but then again, if there was too much alcohol, you'll be wiping off kids from your customer base. I liked the mascarpone mousse and berries cos it's so nice and creamy, and the berry gelee was tangy and sweet at the same time. Lastly, there was Les Macarons in 2 flavours - Hazelunt-Chocolate and Green Tea. Though these 2 flavours aren't on the top of my must try list, they also have sea salt caramel macarons (this is on the top most of my list, followed by rose) which looks really good, just that they didn't have any by the time we ended, or I'd have been tempted to dapao some home despite being extremely full. Hot and cold drinks were included inside the $23, so I got peppermint.

The people from Obolo even thoughtfully gave us some christmas cookies, cranberry with chocolate chips I think? Or was it nuts. It's long gone (already stored in my stomach).

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I was at Marina Square recently, and was waiting for my Mum so I went into Muji. They have a 50% offer for all their Halloween Cake mixes. The mixes cost $9 before the discount, so I decided that there wasn't any harm trying these Japanese premixes for $4.50, and entertaining myself in the kitchen at the same time (since I'm suffering from a Disasterous _ _ _ _ _ _ _).

There were 4 different premixes (I think), including the Pumpkin Chiffon Cake, Pumpkin Sweet Cake (which I also bought cos it looked cute) and Pumpkin Cheesecake. I decided to start with the Pumpkin Chiffon Cake, cos the Japanese instructions at the back looked easier than the Sweet Cakes.

Silly me, I was trying to decipher what kind of ingredients I needed by looking through the Japanese instructions at the back (reading the Chinese words) and was agonizing over what was happenning for at least 15 mins, until I decided what-the-heck I should just see what's in the packet - and I was so relieved to find a set of Engrrrrrish instructions (which I could still understand, thankfully).

It even comes with a disposable cake tray, complete with a plastic cover if you want to da-pao it somewhere! So cool right! The Japanese are so innovative! :D It even comes with pumpkin seeds for topping.

All you need is 2 tablespoons of oil, 1 large egg, 1teaspoon of sugar and 45ml of milk.

The hard part is whisking the eggwhite and sugar into stiff peaks (I miserably failed at this on the first try, cos I was lazy and didn't clean my whisk after stirring the cake mix), but lucky I have a electric mixer. Unlike my home econ days when we had to do everything by hand.

After baking it at 170 degrees and for 25 min, the cake rises and is ready to be eaten. The disposable cake tray can even be peeled open - super cool right!The cake is light and fluffy, has a distinct pumpkin taste and is not so sweet. I'm so going back to Muji to grab a few more packets - must check the expiry date though.

My first chiffon cake is a success :) Except that I couldn't get it out of the tray:/